List of cooking techniques

This is a comprehensive list of cooking techniques, and includes techniques that are unique to various countries, provinces, states, regions and cultures.

Cooking is the art of preparing food for ingestion, commonly with the application of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environments, economics, cultural traditions, and trends. The way that cooking takes place also depends on the skill and type of training of an individual cook.

Blanching – a food, usually a vegetable or fruit, is scalded in boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocking or refreshing) to halt the cooking process.

Braising – a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot at a lower temperature while sitting in some (variable) amount of liquid (which may also add flavor).

Charbroiling – a commonly used cooking device consisting of a series of grates or ribs that can be heated using a variety of means, and is used in both residential and commercial applications for a variety of cooking operations

Chinese cooking techniques – a set of methods and techniques traditionally used in Chinese cuisine.[9] The cooking techniques can either be grouped into ones that use a single cooking method or a combination of wet and dry cooking methods.

Red cooking – also called Chinese stewing, red stewing, red braising and flavour potting, is a slow braising Chinese cooking technique that imparts a red color to the prepared food.

Velveting - coating pieces of raw meat or poultry in a mixture of cornstarch and liquid prior to cooking

Clay pot cooking – a process of cooking food in a pot made from unglazed & natural clay

Concasse – to rough chop any ingredient, usually vegetables. This term is particularly applied to tomatoes, where tomato concasse is a tomato that has been peeled, seeded (seeds and skins removed), and chopped to specified dimensions

Curdling – the breaking of an emulsion or colloid into large parts of different composition through the physico-chemical processes of flocculation, creaming, and coalescence. Curdling is intentional and desirable in making cheese and tofu; unintentional and undesirable in making sauces and custards.

Curing – various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite, or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking. The use of food dehydration was the earliest form of food curing.

Drying – to preserve food by removing moisture, either by use of a modern food dehydrator or by the traditional method of allowing sun and wind to evaporate moisture

Dum pukht – or slow oven cooking, is a cooking technique associated with the Awadh region of India, in which meat and vegetables are cooked over a very low flame, generally in sealed containers.

Dutch oven cooking – A Dutch oven is well suited for long, slow cooking, such as in making roasts, stews, and casseroles. Virtually any recipe[11] that can be cooked in a conventional oven can be cooked in a Dutch oven. They are often used in outdoor cooking, such as when camping.

Infusion – the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often called steeping). A common example of an infusion is tea, and many herbal teas are prepared in the same way.

Pressure cooking – the process of cooking food, using water or other cooking liquid, in a sealed vessel—known as a pressure cooker, which does not permit air or liquids to escape below a pre-set pressure.

Searing – a technique used in grilling, baking, braising, roasting, sautéing, etc., in which the surface of the food (usually meat, poultry or fish) is cooked at high temperature until a crust forms from browning.

Tempering (spices) – a cooking technique and garnish used in the cuisines of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, in which whole spices (and sometimes also other ingredients such as minced ginger root or sugar) are fried briefly in oil or ghee to liberate essential oils from cells and thus enhance their flavours, before being poured, together with the oil, into a dish.